Pope Francis addressed his first Christmas message to every everyone “who hopes for a better world, who cares for others while humbly seeking to do his or her duty”.
He stepped out on the vast balcony at the front of St Peter’s basilica to be greeted by screams fit for Hollywood celebrity. Below him in St Peter’s Square was a crowd brimming with enthusiasm for the new pontiff and his humble, ascetic and socially aware form of Catholicism. That view of his faith was at the heart of his address. “Looking at the child in the manger, our thoughts turn to those children who are the most vulnerable, victims of wars, but we think too of the elderly, of battered women, of the sick,” he said.
“He exemplifies what a pope should be,” said Marian Merrett from Belleville, Ontario. “He’s like Jesus. Jesus too fed the poor and cared for the sick. He exemplifies what Jesus stood for. He lives like Jesus.”
In his sermon at the Christmas Eve mass , Francis had returned to his favourite theme, declaring that the shepherds who according to the gospels were the first to see Jesus after his birth “were the first because they were among the last, the outcast”.
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